The Motor Accident Injuries Act 2017 (MAIA) allows people injured on the roads in NSW to have reasonable and necessary medical treatment and paid attendant care services. This applies (for the first year) regardless of who was at fault¹, and can potentially extend to a lifetime entitlement.

Attendant care services are defined in s1.4 of MAIA as:

"Attendant care services means services that aim to provide assistance to people with everyday tasks, and includes (for example) personal assistance, nursing, home maintenance and domestic services.”

A recent decision of Member Cassidy of the Personal Injury Commission delved into what is meant by “everyday tasks”.

The Claimant had sustained musculoskeletal injuries. He had planned to paint the entire exterior of his home. It was agreed, for the purposes of the dispute, that due to his accident he was physically unfit to do the work.

The Member noted that:

The context of the MAI Act as a whole, is a system of compulsory insurance for all motor vehicles driven on the roads in New South Wales and a system of statutory benefits and damages for persons injured accident in New South Wales…

….The purpose of the definitions of treatment and care and attendant care appears to be the provisions of some boundaries or limits to an insurer’s liability to pay for treatment and care which would help with the “stability and predictability” necessary for premium setting.

In this context, she turned her mind to the question of whether the painting of the exterior of the Claimant’s home was an everyday task as defined.

She considered the example of lawn mowing, which does not need to be done each and every day but which is clearly an “everyday” activity in that it is a “usual or commonplace activity”. She accepted that some forms of house painting would come within the section but that the specific works proposed were not an everyday activity.

She considered the following indicia:

1. This was not a job which could be performed over weekends or on the odd day off.
2. The type of work that needed to be done, including sanding, scraping back old paint, minor repairs, filling gaps, then applying an undercoat and top coat, “would require a degree of planning and a large amount of work to achieve”.
3. The cost of the work, if done professionally, was a significant sum of money and indicates an unusual expenditure.
4. The painting was not a frequent activity.

She concluded that:

When the above reasons are considered, the painting work that was proposed was a major undertaking, a significant project and not something that would ordinarily be contemplated by the phrase “everyday tasks.”

The decision applies some necessary guardrails to the concept of “everyday tasks” as defined in MAIA. Parties to such disputes would benefit from considering the indicia considered by Member Cassidy and providing specific submissions as to why (or why not) the proposed works are “usual or commonplace”.

This article was written by Natasha Miller and Isaac Succari. If you have any questions, please contact Natasha Miller from our Insurance Team.